Determination of source-time function of intermediate and small earthquakes from empirical Green’s functions

The regularization method was used to invert the source-time function of four larger aftershocks of the Luquan, Yun-nan,M _s = 6.1 earthquake of April 18, 1984. Near-field digital accelerograms were used in the inversion. Instead of calculating synthetic seismograms theoretically, an accelerogram of smaller earthquake was used as an empirical Green’s function. The results obtained showed that the source-time function of smaller aftershock was usually a simple pulse, while that of larger events was more or less complicated. The rupture velocities and the average particle velocities of the aftershocks were determined. All the results were in good agreement with the result estimated from the present seismic source theory. The Chinese version of this paper appeared in the Chinese edition ofActa Seismologica Sinica,15, 22–31, 1993. This study is supported by the Western Yunnan Experimental Site for Earthquake Prediction and the Chinese Joint Seismological Science Foundation.